The Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics was again present - in a joint pavilion with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the House of Astronomy, a "Universe of Probabilities" was presented to the interested public. The methods and probability of discovering habitable exoplanets in space were one of the topics.
A special highlight for many visitors was a model of the Rutherford scattering experiment as a miniature golf course - here was the opportunity to literally "play" the concept of the scattering cross section and thus the structure of the atomic model. As a counterpart, there was a gravitational funnel as a model for masses orbiting a black hole and finally falling into it.
In another experiment developed by MPIK staff, interested children and adults were able to discover the laws of statistics and learn something about the acceleration of cosmic rays in supernovae. With the help of two dice and almost 2000 rubber balls, the probabilities for specific dice results were determined and their laws were explored.
Highly motivated, many employees and doctoral students of the departments Blaum, Pfeifer, Keitel and Hinton as well as employees from the infrastructure of the institute were on site to provide explanations about the mathematical models themselves or the research at the institute to the 28,000 visitors of this supraregional event - at this point a big thank you to all involved!
